Fight over lights at gun club in Exeter

Friday

Sep 6, 2013 at 2:00 AM

EXETER — The Exeter Sportsman's Club has sent a letter to town officials saying it wants to put up lights at the shooting range on Portsmouth Avenue so members can shoot until 7:30 p.m during months when the sun sets early.

Jeff McMenemy

EXETER — The Exeter Sportsman's Club has sent a letter to town officials saying it wants to put up lights at the shooting range on Portsmouth Avenue so members can shoot until 7:30 p.m during months when the sun sets early.

"The request is being made to allow ESC full use of the operational times set forth (in the lease with the town) 8:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday and noon to 7:30 p.m. on Sunday," according to a letter written to Town Planner Sylvia von Aulock by club President Emeritus Butch York.

Current club President Joe Kenick Jr. said club officials have been planning to add lights at the facility so they're not losing time in the late fall, winter and early spring.

"Sunset gets to be earlier and earlier and so for a number of years it's been in our plans and priorities to add lights," Kenick said.

The club has a long-term lease to use the town-owned land as a shooting range, and are required to undergo a site plan review with the Planning Board if they want to add lighting, according to the lease.

Kenick said they are prepared to do that, but said when von Aulock told him they had to appear before selectmen too, club officials balked at the idea.

"I said 'no,' we demand to be treated no differently than any other business on Portsmouth Avenue," Kenick said. "We're lease-holders with the town, but the selectmen have nothing to do with that (the lighting request)."

Kenick said the request by von Aulock is what he describes as a pattern of "hostility and prejudicial treatment" from some town officials.

Club officials are happy to go through the site plan review with the Planning Board and address any issues raised, Kenick said, but they are prepared to take legal action if they are required to appear before any other boards or a decision on the lighting is dragged out.

"We will not be discriminated against because we shoot," Kenick said in an interview earlier this week.

He said before signing the most recent lease with the town in 2008, some town officials — not the present Board of Selectmen — had sought to keep the lease on a month-by-month basis.

"I feel that various incendiary members of the town administration were certainly hostile to us," Kenick said. "They were anti-gun and anti-shooting."

Selectmen Chairman Don Clement said he plans to "keep on top," of the request by the club to install lights at the facility.

"In terms of the lease I think they can do it (install lights)," Clement said. "But I've heard from other people who are saying now we're going to get shooting in the fall or winter months beyond sunset."

Clement is trying to "strike the proper balance," between the club and "people who are concerned about the loud noises and the gunshots."

He acknowledged before his time on the board there was some tension between town officials and club members but believes that's changed.

"I guess I would pleasantly disagree with them that the town has been against them," Clement said. "I think as a whole during my time ... the board has been reasonable and been objective."

Kenick said membership in the club is at about 400 people and has been "growing exponentially" during the past several years.

He noted there is a provision in the lease that at least 20 percent of members must be Exeter residents and they're "careful about that."

"The vast majority of our members are good, responsible gun owners who want a safe place to shoot," Kenick said.

Membership in the club jumped significantly after a 20-year-old and three teenagers were charged with the murder of a mother and the maiming of her daughter in their Mont Vernon home in October 2009, Kenick said.

"After those monsters picked the house at random, right after that the female population of New Hampshire suddenly woke up to the fact that when seconds count, the police are still minutes away and that's not a bad reflection on the police," Kenick said. "It just's that the first line of defense is learning how to be able to handle a firearm and protect themselves."

The number of women taking courses at the club jumped dramatically and remains high, he said.

York, the former club president who wrote the letter about the lights to town officials, said the proposal calls for putting four LED reflector lights on three poles.

"By design the light goes where you want it and not up in the sky," he said.

The lights will be installed on three telephone poles 15-feet high, York said.

"They're up above any shooting line and aimed down at the backstop," York said.

He stressed installing the lights would not extend the amount of hours club members can shoot, only allow them to use the times when it's now too dark.

"We just want to be able to have our membership be able to use what they paid for," York said.

Once it starts getting dark early, many members can't shoot during the week, York said.

"Many of our members are blue collar workers or office workers and they don't get out until after 5 p.m.," York said.

Von Aulcok asked the club to site the lights on the existing site drawing the town has from the club.

"The ball is in my court and that's something that I will do," York said.

Once the club gets approval, the lights can be installed in a week or two, he said.

"I would just hope the decision on the lighting request can be made quickly," York said.

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